Blended by Sharon M. Draper

Isabella's mom and dad had been fighting for a while when they finally decided to split up.  Two years later, Isabella's African American dad lives with his new girlfriend in a big house in the rich part of town, and her caucasian mom and her boyfriend live in a more humble home on the poor side of town.  Her parents have joint custody, so Isabella spends one week at her mom's house, and the next at her dad's. When racial tension flares up at school, Isabella feels caught between worlds, and confused about who she really is and where she fits in.

This book got a lot of starred reviews last year and I wonder if it will win awards next week at the ALA Youth Media Award announcements.  The book's strengths are that it deals with a really common situation in modern America. With racial tension higher than it has been in decades, children from mixed races are caught in the crossfire.  Also, Sharon Draper has a pretty light touch with difficult issues and can make them accessible to fairly young readers. The book's weakness, in my opinion, was (spoiler allert) the shooting situation in the last scene.  I just feel that the whole thing about a black youth being shot by a white police has been totally overdone in children's and youth literature.  I know it happens, and it is tragic, but it doesn't happen to every black child you ever meet.  There must be some other situation that an author can use to show that racial profiling is still a problem in our country. Also, it bugged me that they mentioned the shooting in the publisher's book description, so I was dreading it the whole time I was reading the book, and it kind of kept me from enjoying the rest of the story.  I understand why they did it.  They knew if they didn't a whole bunch of parents and educators would have been upset that such a violent thing happened at the end of an otherwise nonviolent story without warning, but still.  Also, (more spoilers!) would a woman officer really be so afraid that a 11 year old girl (of any color) was packing a gun, that she would shoot her?  If it had been her 17 year old step brother, maybe, but an 11 year old girl?  Really?  (2020, 320 p.)

(Ok, I just checked google for articles about girls being shot by police.  In my brief search, I couldn't find any pre-teens who were shot by police , but there are plenty about pre-teen girls being shot in gang violence.  Older teen girls have been shot by police.)